Articles Posted inCredit Report Violations – FCRA

From time to time, our consumer law practice here in Tampa, Fl has had to shift gears to better use our state and federal laws that protect consumers faced with debt – and the inevitable robocalls and erroneous credit reports that come with that.

The current state of robocalls is very similar to the days of emails before spam filters. With the advent of the internet, businesses don’t need expensive hardware. Anyone can start a mini call center with software that auto dials and spoofs caller IDs. Many of the calls appear local and they avoid detection as a debt collector. Small and large companies both still use predictive dialers capable of making hundreds of thousands of calls daily despite a consumer withdrawing consent to call their cell phone.

Thankfully, over the next year or two, the FCC and phone companies will implement a call certification protocol where the phone carrier can verify the caller is legitimately using the number — and Caller IDs may once again mean something!

Punitive damages are increasing as more people start challenging errors on their credit reports.

“Errors” is a funny word. A creditor will likely claim that it was an unintentional “error” that they reported negative information on your credit. But as it really an error?

Punitive damages are on the rise around the nation as more and more people and their consumer attorneys fight back over false information reported on their credit. Inadequate training of personnel, sloppy record keeping, debts being bought and sold repeatedly has led to greater frequency of credit report errors. Errors that can cause consumers thousands of dollars in increased credit costs. The lower someone’s credit, the higher interest rate they can be charged when borrowing money. A lower credit rating for consumers as a whole potentially increases the bottom line for financial institutions across the board.

Fortunately, there are several laws that provide both protection and damages for consumers facing errors on their credit reports. These include the Fair Credit Reporting Act (the “FCRA”), the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (“FACTA”) and most recently the Dodd-Frank amendments.

Credit reports are not only key to obtaining a home, vehicle, and credit cards, but they are also very important in obtaining employment, security clearances, insurance etc. Even if negative credit doesn’t prevent you from obtaining any of these things, you’ll pay a much higher interest rate if your credit has been damaged.

Pull your credit regularly to make sure your creditors are following the law and not causing you harm.

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